Strawberry
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl. Oneshot. Daryl never imagined that one day he might develop an obsession with strawberries. Carol/Daryl.


**AN: This is just a stupid little thing that I wrote simply for entertainment value.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that it does what it was meant to do and entertains you at least for a few moments. Let me know what you think!**

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There was absolutely no way to explain his new obsession. To even begin to explain it would be to admit a series of hard truths to himself and to her. He couldn't ask anyone else about it, either, because that would require the same level of explanation, and this was one curiosity that he'd rather not be forced to put into words.

But it was going to drive him crazy. It was going to drive him absolutely insane. He'd tried all the tricks of getting his mind stuck on something else, but it wasn't working. His mind was too smart for him. His mind already knew all of his tricks. And his mind wasn't going to be swayed.

The biggest problem, of course, was that this obsession followed on the tail of so many other things that had led to the new obsession in the first place—all the things that he didn't want to admit to her or to anyone else.

They'd settled in what they were calling their "community" just before the cold of winter hit and just after they'd realized that Eugene was a lying little asshole that would say anything he had to say to save his own skin. The lesson had hit them all hard, but it had hit some of them harder than others. The fact of the matter was, if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was.

Daryl had learned that lesson long before most other people, apparently, but he'd still been struck by the disappointment that there was no Washington D.C. There was no cure. There was no chance at a new life.

Abraham, though, had been hit by it the hardest. For him? It had meant, at least momentarily, that there was no hope. There was simply no hope at all for the future. There wasn't even a future. They were lying to themselves. They weren't living. They'd given that up long ago and there was no hope that they'd start again. Now they were just surviving. They were ticking off the hours of every day and they were ticking off every day until they simply died.

That was one of the reasons that they'd stopped.

Abraham's depression spiraled out of control and it threatened to take them all with it. One by one they were simply falling down with him. They were losing hope, if they retained any of it to begin with. Steps got slower and heavier. Walkers went down slower and reactions were delayed. At the rate they were going? They wouldn't have been counting down the days much longer because they would have all simply succumbed to the pure hopelessness of their situation and they would have surrendered themselves, one by one, to a Walker to simply end the prolonged torture of it all.

So they'd found the "community" with the thought to spend a few nights. Stopping and resting would renew their energy. Good food would renew their strength. Closing their minds off, even if it was just for shifts, from the horrible nature of things around them might let them forget what was out there. It might remind them what they were continuing on for. It might rekindle some hope that there was something worth finding and that they had a chance at a life that was more than survival.

The community was a gated housing community. All the way around it were fences comprised of brick and iron bars that were too tall for Daryl to see over unless he stood on the brick bases in which the iron bars were set. It seemed relatively untouched since the outbreak. They'd cleared the thirty to forty Walkers that were trapped in there by luring them to the fences and killing them through the bars. They were the poor, country club assholes that had apparently locked themselves in at the beginning of the outbreak to keep themselves safe until the whole thing passed.

Except, of course, the whole thing hadn't passed and they'd simply died and killed each other. Most of them had, probably seeking help in their final hours, come outside of their homes and ended the lives of others. After the main area of the community was cleared, the lock was broken, and they were inside the gates, they'd cleared the houses. It hadn't had to be done all in one night. Those who were safely locked away would remain there until they got around to clearing them out—when they got around to clearing them out.

But after three days of milling about the place without any real trouble, the question became simply "Why would they leave?" What was the rush to leave this community that seemed relatively safe and strike out looking for something that they may never find? Why would they leave this area, small as it may be, and head out looking for something that they hadn't found yet?

They'd decided, then, to wait until the winter passed, if they could survive that long, and then they'd make a decision about what to do. They'd sunk their energy into making runs to gather supplies and into planning what might very well be a future for them. They'd decided to take some time to _heal_. And honestly the time that they were taking seemed to be working wonders for most of them. If nothing else, it gave them the opportunity to start to let their guards down—though never entirely—just enough to breathe.

Winter had been cold, and it had been long, but it had given way to a spring that had brought with it a spring in the feelings of the people in the community. Why would they leave when they could grow gardens and produce food? Why would they leave when they could reinforce the fences and keep out the Walkers that only came to gawk at them and claw through the bars they couldn't manage to push down?

Spring gave way to summer and a heat that almost suffocated them after the cold.

And that was when the trouble for Daryl had started that had given way to the new obsession.

The coming of the hot summer meant the shedding of the heavy winter clothes. It was no longer necessary to come outside in two to three layers of everything that you could get on. It wasn't necessary to make sure that none of your skin saw the cold. Instead, it was almost uncomfortable to wear anything. As a result, the cold weather clothing had been stripped down to the bare essentials and someone had taken scissors to several pairs of winter pants and had turned them into shorts.

And whoever had done it? Daryl didn't know whether to bless them for their inability to know what was probably the proper length of shorts or to curse them for the torture that they'd now subjected him to, because every single woman in the community owned at least two pair of shorts that would have made Daisy Duke blush—whether she wanted to wear them or not. The shorts fairy, after all—and Daryl suspected it may have been Tara because she'd been red faced when several people had complained to find out what had happened to their laundry—had struck their wardrobes and left them with relatively no choice but to wear the shorts until a run could be made for some replacements.

And with the enforced wearing of the shorts, Daryl had gotten more than an eyeful of...well...even if he told himself he wasn't going to look? Even if he told himself it was rude to look? He couldn't help but look. He was human.

It wasn't that the looking was all that bad though. He certainly wasn't the only one looking. It was just that he'd been looking at Carol and—he'd noticed it. Except he didn't know what it was. And he couldn't figure out what it was and that led to more looking than usual. And the more looking than usual did nothing to answer his question about what the hell it was, but it did a whole lot for making him realize that maybe he'd looked at Carol a little more than he should—maybe he always had—and maybe he was a little happier about the shorts than he wanted to admit.

Because he didn't want to admit a single damn thing about the whole situation—but he wanted to know what the hell it was.

He didn't notice it just glancing at her. The shorts fell in such a way that it was hidden from view while she walked around and did the normal things that required her to remain upright. He hadn't even noticed it at first because, evidently self-conscious about the shorts, or maybe even about the thing, Carol had spent the first few days of donning her shorts simply squatting instead of bending to do anything that required her lowering herself toward the ground. But after a few days? She'd given up the trying to hide and had simplified her life by bending when she needed to bend—and she needed to bend a good deal for the work they were doing on the various gardens.

It was red. It was red and it was right where the curve of her ass and her leg joined—maybe a little higher. It was always somewhat hidden, half obscured, by the fabric, but every now and again Daryl caught a glimpse of it. Was it a tattoo? Was it naturally occurring? How big was it? Did she know that it was there?

Daryl realized it was an obsession the day that he'd spent his "break" smoking a cigarette and pretending to pace circles around some of the gardens for "exercise" so that he could continue to strategically place himself in positions to observe it whenever it might peek out from the fabric. Unfortunately, that led to a whole other strand of problems because he was then forced to walk off whatever feelings might be stirred up from staring at Carol's ass all the live long day while she puttered around in the garden.

But he couldn't say anything about it. Not to Carol or to anyone else. Because saying something about it would mean having to admit that he'd been staring at it—and that he'd been staring at Carol's ass. And that, honestly, could very well lead to the admittance that it wasn't the first time that he'd stared, it was simply the first time that the little red thing was visible to him.

 _And it might lead to him having to admit, even to himself, that he wanted to see more of it—and it wasn't just for what he was pretending were strictly medical concerns._

The obsession continued on in silence until the day that Glenn returned from a run and brought with him two boxes of assorted clothes. Carol had been one of the first to practically dive into the box—unusual for her since she usually allowed everyone else to take their pick first—and to come up with pants that she felt were more suitable to her.

The first day that she'd come out of her house, most of them living communally because they'd long forgotten how to do anything else, wearing the pants, Daryl had felt a little disappointment at the fact that the great mystery might never be solved for him.

Of course, he told himself because it was because he was concerned—for medical reasons—about what the mark was, but it was also a little because the gray and somewhat baggy yoga pants didn't quite give him the view that he'd now become accustomed to.

While he was standing there, smoking his post breakfast cigarette and talking himself out of the disappointment stirred up by the new pants, Carol passed by him with her bucket in one hand and her gloves in the other. She stopped just beside him and put the bucket down to put on the gloves that would protect her hands while she worked.

"Working on the fences today?" She asked.

Daryl hummed, drawn out of his daydream.

"Clearing houses with Michonne," Daryl said. "Get more room in case we all wanna spread out or—something."

She smiled softly and nodded.

"So you won't be out and around the gardens?" Carol asked.

Daryl shook his head.

"Not except when I'm smoking," he said. "'Chonne gets pissy if I do it inside."

Carol hummed, but didn't respond immediately. She took her time and paid close and careful attention to the gloves that she was putting on. Then she raised an eyebrow at him, the way that she sometimes did, and pursed her lips at him before she apparently chose to go ahead and say what was spinning around in her mind.

"It's a shame," she said.

Daryl hummed his question at her.

"My ass will miss the attention," Carol said.

Daryl felt the blood rush to his face. He almost felt lightheaded at the sudden relocation of it all. Carol smiled. Apparently his face gave something away about his inner feelings. She looked pleased with her handiwork. She made a quiet humming noise before continuing to speak, her voice low and soft and clearly indicating it was meant only for him to hear.

"And—it's a strawberry. A birthmark."

Daryl opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come out. Carol's cheeks flooded a little with pink, but she was undeterred.

"You talk to yourself...quietly...when you're perplexed. It's—it's cute," she said.

Daryl gave up entirely in that moment. He'd have given up on living, right then, if he'd thought it would make him disappear and alleviate some of the humiliation.

"If you ever want a better look at it," Carol said, "just—let me know."

And with that, and without waiting for the answer that Daryl couldn't get his paralyzed vocal chords to give her, she reached down, picked up her bucket, and walked away without another word.

 _But Daryl was certain that the strawberry, hidden though it might be, was doing a dance with the sashaying of her hips that he knew full well she was doing on purpose._

It was then that Daryl had to be honest with himself. This obsession—maybe not as new as it seemed—was like the strawberry. It simply wasn't ever going to fade away.


End file.
